Writing for an Audience

Often writing seems to be students’ least favorite skill. It’s serious work and often related to tests, homework and grades. Most of the texts that students write serve only one purpose: namely to fulfill an assignment. They are written for the teacher, for a grade. Teachers complain about the boring task of grading the same stories and essays over and over again. Many of these texts would not “survive” in real life — nobody would want to read them.

Let’s change this!

If writing is to become more interesting for both students and teachers, we need to consider three things:

1. Setting authentic, real-world tasks

2. Writing for a real audience

3. Publishing and packaging

The following examples will show that this can easily be done and will lead to much more interesting, high quality texts at all levels.